


Duty

by dptullos



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-04
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-14 03:48:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28539132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dptullos/pseuds/dptullos
Comments: 13
Kudos: 26





	Duty

Aral Vorkosigan was his father’s son.

Commander Nicholas Petrovic had never seen both of them in the same room, but he’d studied Piotr Vorkosigan long before he met the Great General’s son. It was his paper on the General that had brought him to Minister Grishnov’s attention, and eventually to his position on the  _ Emperor Dorca _ . 

Aral Vorkosigan was the center of attention in every room. Some would call that Vor arrogance, but that wasn’t all of it. Nicholas had met Vor commanders- and a handful of proles- who used their rank and position to build their own cult of personality, surrounding themselves with sycophants and flatterers. Aral Vorkosigan was far too arrogant to require flattery. 

Even now, in his moment of triumph, he was utterly focused on the job at hand. Admiral Aral Vorkosigan stood at the center of the bridge, the picture of a Barrayaran commander, with subordinate officers and aides orbiting around him like planets moving around the sun. The elaborate machinery of the fleet moved, and Aral Vorkosigan looked on to be sure that all was as it should be. 

The admiral watched his fleet, and the political officer watched the admiral. On the first day that Nicholas had arrived, Admiral Vorkosigan had told him to stay out of his way, and he had obeyed. Perhaps Vorkosigan thought he was frightened of the admiral’s name, of the admiral’s famous father. Nicholas was frightened of Piotr Vorkosigan- only a fool wouldn’t be- but he had obeyed because it was easier. Some of his colleagues liked to make a great show of their power, interfering with an officer’s decisions simply because they could. Nicholas had always thought it was wiser to watch. 

What he had seen was a campaign for the history books. The Great General had won through cold, pitiless math, exchanging his soldiers for the enemy’s men like a merchant haggling over prices. His son had taken Komarr at the cost of less than two hundred Barrayaran lives, waging a war as brilliant as it was bloodless. Even the Komarrans had been spared as much as possible, despite the muttering of some of the Admiral’s subordinates. 

There was no muttering now. The Vor officers would have followed Vorkosigan anywhere, and even the proles, handpicked for their discipline and reliability, had succumbed to Aral Vorkosigan’s charisma. From a strictly military perspective, Aral Vorkosigan was the best commander the fleet could have hoped for, and Nicholas’s confidential reports to Minister Grishnov emphasized that truth. Bitter though it was to admit it, no prole, however capable or talented, could have managed to command such obedience from Vor subordinates. 

All had gone exactly according to Emperor Ezar’s plan. A conquest to secure Barrayar’s borders; a short, victorious war to quiet the whispers of rebellion from Vor who bitterly resented the Emperor’s constant expansion of Imperial power. Admiral Vorkosigan would return in triumph, having proven himself a worthy successor to the Great General. 

That was exactly the problem. Emperor Ezar was a strong ruler, but he had a curious blind spot for the Vorkosigans. He had sent Piotr Vorkosigan’s son forth to win glory, while his own son remained at home. The broadcasts might proclaim Prince Serg’s brilliance to ignorant civilians, but no officer in the Service was fooled by those lies. They knew Aral Vorkosigan was his father’s son, just as they knew that Prince Serg was a frightened, insecure child. 

The last time that the Imperial Service had been forced to choose between their rightful Emperor and their general, they had chosen the general. The history books praised General Vorkosigan for overthrowing the “tyrant Yuri”, as though Emperor Ezar was not a tyrant. They praised him for avenging the deaths of his family, as though a Vorkosigan life was worth more than the oceans of prole blood that the Great General had shed in pursuit of his vengeance. 

Nicholas had been sixteen years old when the press gang had snatched him out of a refugee camp and forced him to swear his allegiance to Emperor Ezar. He had cried like a baby, and the sergeant had struck him across the face and told him to be a man. Those were the last tears he had ever cried. 

His brother Vlad had been taken less than a month later by Emperor Yuri’s press gang. Nicholas had only found out about his fate long after the war, when one of his old squadmates had shown up with Vlad’s dog tags and a plea for money. The man said that Vlad had died bravely, but once Nicholas got him drunk he admitted that Vlad had been shot through the guts. His brother had wept and screamed before his friend put a bullet in his head to end his suffering. 

The Emperor’s subjects hated the Ministry of Political Education, and Nicholas would never deny that they earned that hatred. Far too many of his colleagues joined for status, or power, or out of a desire to inflict officially sanctioned cruelty. Nicholas had joined because he had seen a simple, obvious truth. 

When Vor fought, proles bled. Emperor Ezar was a traitor, an usurper, and a tyrant, but he was the Emperor and he kept the peace. It was a peace of terror and brutality, of disappearances in the night for prole dissidents and “aircar accidents” for the Vor, but it was not war. All the crimes of the Ministry, all of the petty, vicious cruelties that his colleagues loved so well, were still better than the High Vor rising against the Emperor, burning fields and cities without a second thought for the lives they took in pursuit of their ambitions. 

There was hardly a man in the fleet who didn’t hate Komarrans. Even Aral Vorkosigan despised them, though he kept his loathing under strict control. Despite that almost universal hatred, though, Nicholas had never even disliked Komarrans. It was Emperor Yuri’s men who had made him an orphan when they burned his home, and it was Emperor Ezar’s men who had shot Vlad in the stomach and left him to die. They would conquer Komarr for their own security, to safeguard Barrayar from another Invasion, but Nicholas would not pretend that there was something unique about Komarr’s sins. His people would have done the same thing in their place. 

Perhaps the Komarrans would understand what he must do now, even if they would not forgive. 

It was simple enough to casually mention just how much Aral Vorkosigan seemed to hate Komarrans. How he hid his emotions, but Nicholas thought he could see flashes of rage when he spoke of Komarran collaboration, of Vorkosigan Vashnoi burning in nuclear fire. It was all true, and Nicholas was careful to emphasize that the Admiral had never allowed his anger to influence his judgement. Every one of his reports included a glowing description of the Admiral’s genius, painting the picture of a cynical political officer being reluctantly won over by a truly remarkable officer.

The sealed orders were ready in his pocket, with all of the correct authorization codes. Barrayar did not train its soldiers to question orders. Later, when the investigators looked at them, they would never be able to say with certainty that Aral Vorkosigan  _ hadn’t  _ given the command. 

Minister Grishnov would deny any involvement. There was no proof, no written orders or even spoken commands. The Minister knew why he had joined the Ministry, and he knew that Nicholas would do what was necessary for Barrayar. 

He lifted the reader in his hands. It was too easy to see strangers as abstractions, never truly as real as the people that you knew. Perhaps that was how Piotr Vorkosigan could mourn the death of his own son while butchering half-Cetagandan babies; perhaps that was how Ezar Vorbarra had been able to climb to the campstool over a mountain of bodies. His world bred monsters, and Nicholas would not pretend that his own hands were clean. 

The reader came to life, and he looked down at a familiar list. Three hundred names. Three hundred lives. More deaths would follow, in the months and years to come, as Komarr rose in outrage against Barrayaran treachery. The least that he could do was remember their names. 

_ Alessi, Alfieri, Arcuri, Baresi... _ all the great families of Komarr. There were no faces to go with the names. Well, except for one face, a young woman with dark eyes and a steady voice. The Councilor who had spoken with Admiral Vorkosigan to offer the surrender. He fought to remember her name, to recall her courage and dedication to her planet. She deserved to be remembered. 

_ Rebecca...Rebecca Galen _ . That was the name. 


End file.
